There was this time like that when I was still in Junior Secondary School, I think it was in JSS2 or so, I can't be too certain but one thing I cannot and will never forget is the incident that happened to me.
It was the day the thief became the owner, and the owner punished instead of the thief.
It was on a very hot afternoon, our break time was 11:30am to 12pm and so once it's 11:25am, our system was already shutting down and preparing for break time, we were just waiting for the time keeper to go and do his/her job and ring the bell.
Unlike the oyibos, who once the bell goes off, students stand up and leave whether the teacher likes it or not, here in Nigeria, if you dare leave while the teacher is still in the class, you are finished.
So I went out with my classmates and friends to go and queue first and buy my favorite, one sausage roll #20, one buns #20 and one bottle of zobo #50, the remaining #10 was for chewing gum.
My lunch money was always #100.
Some days I had to fast from morning till I close by 4:30pm so I can come to school the next day with #200 and be a big boy for that day.
The day before, my father had brought home some very nice fancy Biro's from his office, and I was eager to show it off to my friends in school the next day.
So in my excitement I had wrapped the pen in shiny paper and dropped it in my bag the night before.
I couldn't stop showing it off to everyone in the class and bragging with my new fancy pen, I had my own circle and so we were all taking turns to write with the pen while I supervised how many words and how many seconds each of my guy in my clique spent with the pen.
''Kingdavid please naaa, sebi Junior has been writing since.''
''Kingdavid it's my turn, I only wrote my name, Uche has written his surname and village name.''
''Kingdavid please na, Akin wrote for 10 seconds but me I only wrote for 5 seconds.''
These were the kind of conversations we were having, while the others looked on in envy.
So by the time it was break time, the excitement had dwindled and so I wrapped my shiny pen and placed it jejely back inside my bag.
After playing and eating my sausage roll, buns and zobo, it was time to go in as break time or recess as it is called now, was over, so I and my gang went in and I decided I needed to trend again so I rushed to my bag to retrieve my golden pen and lo and behold, to my greatest bewilderment, my golden pen was gone!!!!
I started calculating my every move and tracing my every steps prior to the last time I saw the pen.
I started analyzing every single word spoken and those left unspoken.
I became FBI and CIA and recruited my clique members to immediately go into action and find my shiny pen.
I had one prime suspect, his name was Ikechukwu. He was a round chubby face looking devil.
I immediately knew it was him because he begged me several times for the pen and I refused because I had pleaded with him to tear the center of his note for me the previous day and he had refused but instead torn it for a girl called Mercy in the class then.
Mercy was one of those girls that everybody said they hated but were always positioning themselves to be noticed by her and even help her the second she asked for help.
Ikechukwu had sworn to us that he hated her so much and would never talk to her, but that day she had asked for paper to put on her seat before sitting down because she claimed her uniform was imported from London and so she couldn't sit on the made in Nigeria desk and there he was, rushing like an imbecile to tear his note for her to sit, beating two other boys who claimed to hate her too, in the process.
And when I asked him to tear for me so I can draw cartoon because most of my notebooks had passed the middle and besides, I didn't want to tear my book, Ikechukwu refused and asked me to tear my own.
''But you just tore for Mercy?'' I asked, feeling betrayed.
''Yes, but I only did it because the headmistress said we should help our neighbor and love them as we love ourselves in the morning devotion.''
I swore to take my revenge on him that day, and so when the opportunity came, I seized it with both hands and legs.
So he was my prime suspect and immediately, I went to him with my best friend and seat mate, Chris.
Together we pushed him against the wall and tried to bully him into giving us back, but he kept on insisting on his innocence and as the bullying intensified, Mercy went to report to our class teacher.
Somehow Chris got wind of the reporting and left, leaving just me and Ikechukwu, as I was holding him by the throat and choking life out of him or the truth, our class teacher came in and without even listening to my side of the story, flogged me three strokes and still asked me to kneel down.
Oh God I cried eh, not because the cane was painful o, it wasn't even that painful like that, but the fact that my pen was still missing and the thief was walking free while I was being punished was very painful I couldn't hold my tears.
The injustice was too much for me to stomach so I cried and cried and hated the world.
After serving my punishment, the stupid and wicked teacher still asked me to apologize and shake hands with him, so I did and squeezed his hands, when he screamed, the evil teacher knocked my head again and still flogged me.
It didn't end there, he still asked me to apologize and this time, hug him, all the while Ikechukwu was just smiling with his fat chubby face or maybe he wasn't because that was how his face was, even when he wasn't smiling it looked like he was.
Yet after I did it again, my pen still wasn't found so I cried again but this time in the toilet.
It was then Chris came and suggested that we befriended him and then one of us will distract him so the other can search his bag for the pen. Perfect plan, right?
He said he watched it in cartoon network, me too I had watched something similar in Flintstones too, so immediately we set out for out perfect plan.
We needed to do this because we knew if he took that pen home, it was lost forever, he will never bring it to school again. Time was running out.
Anyways, the plan didn't work!!!
We befriended him but Ikechukwu refused to leave his bag, he even took the bag to the toilet, in fact he carried it everywhere he went throughout that day till school closed, and we tried so hard to search the bag, even walking him almost to his house gate until finally we had to turn back and tell ourselves the truth.
My shiny pen was gone together with my dignity.
Till today I still suspect Ikechukwu but again it could have been anyone.
I would never know.
The end.
Kingdavid Chinaeke Ofunne
Authorpreneur
www.ofunneceo.blogspot.com
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